Lawyertalkpodcast.com back here taking on questions and comments.

Troy, you got a good one, I think.

Yes.

So here on Facebook, we got from William Yates.

He has a pretty long question, but to summarize it, he's asking, what's more important when an officer pulls you out of the vehicle, is it for the officer's safety or the passenger's safety in general?

I mean, look, we would all say my safety is the most important thing in the world, right?

They would say that.

And maybe not everybody would say that, but I think, you know, we all look out for our own safety.

It's a weird question because, look, the Supreme Court, as far as I know anyway, is not recognized a generalized officer safety exception to the warrant requirement or to.

To the Fourth Amendment requirements.

I'll say generally speaking, but you hear this all the time, typically.

Now, this is like what I'll call this is there are red flags.

I see.

So when pick your profession, whatever it is, folks, you get good enough where you can sort of see the play in the joints of what's really going on.

I start reading a police report, basic traffic stop.

And whenever I see a bunch of language that says something like this, for officer safety, I did blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

For officer safety, I did, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's become sort of the catchphrase that officers will sometimes use to justify conduct that might not quite fit neatly in the Fourth Amendment bounds.

So for officer safety, I did this.

Usually when I see that, I start thinking, all right, what's going on here?

There must be a search coming, or somebody did something wrong.

And, you know, the Supreme Court is yet to just declare a general officer's safety exception to the Fourth Amendment or the search warrant requirements, because, look, it would just be abused wholeheartedly.

Yeah.

But it doesn't mean that officer safety hasn't been at least a factor that the courts have considered in allowing other exceptions.

One would be what?

I think this is in response to the Mims order.

The Pennsylvania vs. Mims case came out, I think, in 84.

I might be wrong about that, but came out that says, look, the police can order you out of your car after a legitimate traffic stop, and there's really not much we can do about it.

And it's been justified on some level as safety for officers.

Like, they don't want you in the car where you have access to potential firearms or whatever.

And you can debate that like, yeah, I'm not a. I'm not going to debate it.

I don't know the Pros and cons of that we can kick around.

You know, is it really safer?

Is it really not safer?

But they don't say, you know, I think baked into that also is the.

Is the person's safety.

Yes.

And the question becomes, what if an officer orders me out of the car?

Orders you out of the car on the side of the road with traffic flying by where the berm is only two feet wide?

Yeah, I was thinking on the freeway.

That's what I was on the freeway, right.

I accidentally take one more step and all of a sudden, gone.

Right.

For your safety.

And look, as an aside here, anybody who's ever seen somebody pulled over on the side of the road, do you know where the police are often going?

To the passenger side window because they don't want to be having their ass hanging out onto the freeway.

The other thing the police do is they'll pull their cruiser and if you ever see it in an angle.

Yeah.

Behind the car so they can open their door safely without getting struck by a car.

Very dear friend of mine's wife was a police officer and she.

Her car was hit from behind during a traffic stop.

She was injured.

She's okay, but it's impacted her significantly.

So there are some dangers there for both people.

So how do we address it?

How do we address it?

I think.

I don't know if there should be case law on it, but I imagine police departments have policy agenda like steps.

Please take these.

And then if they violate them, the remedy is civil lawsuits and all that.

Yeah, that's right.

I think you're right.

I think police do not get a pass for ordering people to do unsafe things.

You still have to prove it, though.

So look, let's just say basic tort law, okay?

What makes negligence?

Negligence is there's four elements.

There's breach, duty, breach, causation, damage.

All right, you can take my torch exam then.

All right, my bad.

So the police have a duty of care and you have to allege they breach that duty of care, and as a result of that breach, they caused you injury.

That's two types of cause, but approximately caused your injury and there's some damage.

You actually had damages that you can attribute to the breach.

So in other words, the police were negligent.

If the police order you out and make you stand in traffic hit by a car, they're going to be sued.

Now that's no tonic if you're dead.

Right.

But hopefully that is enough to keep this in check.

It's a good question and it's A.

It's a fair consideration.

And I think we all would hope that the police would take into account a person's safety when they're issuing orders.

I'll tell you a story.

We'll call this Uncle Steve's story.

Uncle.

Okay, Unk.

I was at a neighborhood Fourth of July party.

This is probably 15, 20 years ago.

And I have been a practicing criminal defense lawyer for a lot of years, more than 30 now, I think.

And so I was a criminal defense lawyer at the time.

And there was alcohol being consumed at this party.

It was a roped off yard party type thing across from a park where fireworks would be shown.

And the roads were also blocked.

And somebody was coming to this party.

I didn't know the guy, but he was coming to this party and apparently had parked within the barricade.

Something had happened.

He had done something that the police didn't like.

But it was one of those scenarios where it was sort of chaotic.

People everywhere.

You can't always tell what's going on.

There's room to get by the barricades or you allowed to get by the barricades if you have to go to this party.

Like, it wasn't.

You couldn't say.

The police would say, well, that was obvious.

I'd be like.

I was looking at.

Thinking that wasn't so obvious.

Yeah.

Nonetheless, the police were involved.

This guy had been already at the party consuming alcohol, quite a bit of it, in fact.

And the police come and they say, whose car?

It's my car.

And there's an argument that ensues.

They say, go move that damn car right now.

Blah, blah, blah.

And I'm watching this, and what do they do?

They put a drunk guy behind the wheel of a car and told him to move it.

And I think they actually, they may have even pulled him over.

I can't.

It's been a while.

But I don't know if I actually, in my head, if I remember thinking, if they pull him over, he's got a decent.

He's got maybe not an actual defense, but like, come on.

Following police orders.

I feel like if I was on a jury, I'd be like, no way.

We can't convict this guy.

But they put that guy in an unsafe scenario.

Yeah.

You know, and he, He.

The guy himself was acting sort of belligerently.

And I.

And I happened to.

Look, people have heard me defend the police all the times, but you also haven't seen me in a courtroom going after the cops.

I do it a lot.

And I would have gone after the cops here, I think the police have to have some thick skin.

I think the police have to be able to deal with the public.

And if you don't have the temperament for that, you ought not be a police officer.

I would say, you know, because you're dealing, let's face it, a lot of times with.

With assholes.

You're dealing with people sometimes in their worst days.

You're dealing with people who are emotionally distressed and they're sometimes just venting and the police have to take the vent.

Now.

There's lines that get crossed all the time.

It goes too far.

And the police.

But you can see what I'm saying.

You have to have some thick skin and putting this guy behind the wheel and saying, you go move your car right now.

And I remember telling my buddies, I was like, boy, this is screwed up.

But was I going to go in?

I mean, I can't intervene and say, look, don't do this to him.

Yeah.

And I'm.

Now it's on me.

So I think police should.

And we as a society should bake into the cake considerations of our public safety, of our personal safety, rather.

And we do because we can always sue the police.

Now.

People don't like this remedy.

I get comments all the time, but it's the best we have.

Yeah, it's the best we have.

Go file your.

I'm going to go file a complaint.

Maybe that gets somewhere.

And I encourage people to exercise all the rights they can.

But if you want to file a criminal lawsuit because the police have endangered you, then do it right.

Go air it out.

Let the courts decide it.

Don't take it into your own hands.

And certainly don't on the side of the road start arguing with the police about it.

I get one of our most cannot resist.

These are the ones that people like the most.

And my point is not can you, it's should you and don't.

And this is not defending an unlawful arrest.

It is not defending unlawful police conduct.

It is just saying, Watch YouTube, folks, and see what happens to people who get in fights with cops.

They always lose.

And sometimes they lose everything that means their lives.

And it's tragic, it's horrible.

Don't fight with the cops doesn't mean that they're doing what is right, but it means that you can't win there.

That's not your battlefield.

That's not where we can win the fight.

That's not where you're gonna win the fight.

Get it to us, we'll defend the case.

Get it to a civil rights lawyer, they'll.

They'll go do it.

And the more of that we do, as imperfect as it is, it'll sort of raise the bar across the board.

Anyway, don't interfere with the cops on the street.

Deal with it later in court.

Yep.

All right.

Lawyer talk.

Off the record, on the air.

Great comment.

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